Could Distributed Peer Review Better Decide Grant Funding?
The landscape of academic grant funding is notoriously competitive and plagued by lengthy, bureaucratic processes, exacerbated by difficulties in finding willing reviewers. Distributed […]
Welcoming the American ‘Nudge Unit’
The White House’s Social and Behavioral Sciences Team has done an impressive job so far in using small, inexpensive changes to make federal policies better serve citizens.
There’s Life Beyond STEM: A Plea from Australia
Academia has long recognized that wicked problems require cross-disciplinary research approaches, yet Australia’s Science and Research Priorities enthrall mainly STEM researchers. This divide puts academia back into silos: those on the sunny side of funding decisions and those under a constant rain cloud.
A New Front in the Replication Wars: Economics
A sense of crisis is developing in economics after two Federal Reserve economists came to the alarming conclusion that economics research is usually not replicable.
In South Africa, OA is a Necessity, Not a Nicety
Individual academics and institutions have driven the open access process in South Africa. This bottom-up approach has its merits, argue John Butler-Adam, Susan Veldsman and Ina Smith, but a push from the top is needed to ensure that the nation stays on track.
Deaton’s Victory for Applied Economics, Statisticians
Angus Deaton’s work is a model of what applied economics ought to be, says Ian Preston. No award the Nobel committee has made has pleased the author as much, for the recognition it gives both Deaton and the type of work he does.
Tracking the Gender Gap in Assigned Readings
New research looking at international relations courses finds that male professors assign more readings by males — and much of it their own work — than do female professors. And this does a disservice to students, argues Jeff Colgan.
How Data Empowered the Individual (and Won a Nobel)
Angus Deaton called for the applied microeconomists not to abandon economic theory in favor of experiments but instead to think more deeply about the consequences of economic theories and how they can be tested using real-world data. This is the approach he has followed throughout his career and what has led to him win a Nobel Prize.
How Sustainable is Sustainability Science?
Sustainability science must be integrated into society. We cannot begin to solve complex problems, argues Benjamin P. Warner, without working with the people most impacted by them.
